DYFS mum on investigation of Jersey City 4-year-old's solo bus journey across town

Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 9:58 AM
By Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal

Michael T. Dempsey/The Jersey Journal
Cops picked up a 4-year-old boy in Journal Square on Sunday.

The investigation of how a 4-year-old Jersey City found his way from his baby-sitter?s house on West Side Avenue to Journal Square on a city bus Sunday is now in the hands of the state Division of Youth and Family Services, according to Jersey City police.

And DYFS isn?t talking.

A spokeswoman for DYFS said yesterday that confidentiality laws prohibit the agency from saying whether or not there is any investigation relating to the child.

The youngster was found Sunday at 11:36 a.m., at old Stanley Theater at Kennedy Boulevard and Pavonia, 1.7 miles away from the baby sitter?s West Side Avenue home, officials said.

The boy told police that he let himself out of his baby sitter?s house on West Side Avenue and took a public bus to the square to look for his mother, police said.

Representatives of two bus companies that operate regular buses along West Side Avenue said they do not believe the child used one of their buses to make the journey.

No charges have been filed in the case and the boy was returned to his mother?s care on Sunday, police said.